Tag: Law and Disorder

Wait… What

This has to be one of the biggest what in the fucking fuck moments in history:

Queensland police have appealed for public assistance in finding 10 handguns stolen from a Brisbane gun club.

They have recovered 14 of 24 guns stolen at gunpoint from the Sporting Shooters Association’s Belmont club at 6.35am (AEST) last Thursday.

Apparently in Australia a two man team with a single rifle between them can rob a gun range. I’m imagining how this would go down at any gun range I’ve been to in the United States… yeah I can’t see this going down the same here. The main difference I see is there being one dead thug, another thug with wet pants, and every gun stored at the range still safely locked in their safes.

Seriously how to you rob a gun range and walk away without any additional holes in your person? I’m completely baffled by this.

Illinois Police Stealing Money

Illinois has appeared twice on this site today, how unfortunate for them. First Mayor Daley of Chicago is whining that his beloved database of peasants who are armed isn’t ready. Now I learned via Dvorak Uncensored that the Aurora Police Department are refusing to comply with a judge’s order to return $190,040 of money they stole:

Though neither Jose nor Jesus Martinez is charged with a crime, authorities are seeking forfeiture of $190,040 found in Jesus’ truck when he was stopped by an Aurora police officer on Oct. 18.

A Kane County judge ordered the money returned, but the city has refused.

The police followed the “logic” that anybody who has a large quantity of cash on hand is a drug-dealer and thus the money can be forcefully stolen by the state. What’s most interesting is a judge ordered the police to return the stolen money but they are refusing. I think this is a little outside of their authority. Then again I don’t understand where they received the authority to steal money from private citizens with no evidence or charges of any wrong doings.

These officers should be arrested themselves for armed robbery (they were armed when they stole the money so might as well do the same to them as they would do to any of us).

America Making Terrorists

If the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) creates a terrorist can they really claim they stopped stopped him? Apparently they think so:

A man has been charged with attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction for allegedly plotting to blow up a military recruitment centre near Baltimore with a car bomb.

OK that sounds like they stopped somebody right? Wait there is more:

The bomb was also a fake supplied by agents as part of a sting operation.

This is the second guy who has attempted to “bomb” something with a “bomb” given to them by the FBI. Also it should be noted both of these guys were recruited by FBI agents working to get their arrest numbers up under cover.

It’s also interesting that the FBI manufactured terrorist is being charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The last time I heard a regular bomb was an explosive and a nuclear bomb was a weapon of mass destruction. This classification falls under the fact a regular bomb takes out part of a building while a nuclear weapon takes out an entire fucking region of the planet. Concept of scale apparently escapes the FBI though.

Inconsistency of the FBI

This is a very interesting article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). It seems the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) arbitrarily attempts to cover up their illegal activities when complying with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The EFF obtained two copies of two documents from the FBI via the FOIA. What’s interesting in both cases is either copy of the same document had parts redacted but the parts that were redacted between copies were different:

The report discusses the FBI’s improper collection of bank and credit card records. In Version 1, all important information about the violation (including that it relates to financial records) was withheld. Version 2 reveals most of the details and shows the extent of the FBI’s violation. In this matter, the FBI, as part of an ongoing investigation into international terrorism, sought hotel and financial records on a subject. Although the agent responsible had no legal authority to obtain the financial records, he or she purposefully styled a request to a financial institution as a National Security Letter (NSL) to hide this fact, essentially lying to obtain the bank and credit card information.

What’s even more interesting is the fact this isn’t the first time such behavior has been noticed:

This certainly isn’t the first time we’ve seen evidence that an arm of the Justice Department has withheld more than it is entitled to under FOIA. We found this in the FBI’s response of one of our earlier FOIA requests and reported on it here. More recently, the New York Times reported on the Justice Department’s attempts to keep from the public eye evidence of its embarrassing role in the US government’s “collaboration with [Nazi] persecutors.”

Even with claims of a more transparent government (remember that Obama promise?) it seems the amount of transparency differs day to day. This behavior, like so much of the behavior of our government, is disgusting to say the last. Thankfully it appears the EFF is going to be bringing this to court:

Federal agencies should not be able to hide their missteps behind white blocks. We plan to bring this to the court’s attention in our lawsuit challenging the FBI and other agencies’ improper withholding of reports submitted to the Intelligence Oversight Board.

Of course I question how much will be accomplished by asking the government to punish itself for its own misgivings.

Joel Rosenberg Arrested

If you converse with many carry advocates in Minnesota you probably know the name Joel Rosenberg. He’s the author or Everything You Need to Know About (Legally) Carrying a Handgun in Minnesota and a carry permit instructor. Yesterday he was arrested on charges of having possession of a weapon in a courthouse. The story doesn’t seem as straight forward as it’s being reported by the Red Star as this article has a bit more detail.

Either way it seems he carried his gun into Minneapolis City Hall and was requested to leave. According to a stated court order Minneapolis City Hall is a gun-free zone because it connects with the Government Center. I’m not sure how that works as Minneapolis often seems to have laws of their own that little or no sense.

With how convoluted this story is (it seems to be a bunch of he said she said) I haven’t a clue what to think. Although I don’t believe the Minneapolis City Hall can’t arbitrarily declare themselves a gun-free zone I’m not sure if any courthouse integrates into it and thus effects the law. It’s also stated that Mr. Rosenberg refused to leave upon the request of the police officer citing state law. I applaud anybody willing to stand up to an officer on a power trip but frankly I’m one to leave upon request without argument. It’s not that I feel like giving into an officer incorrectly enforcing a law, I just like to avoid conflict with other people when possible. What is really odd though is the story states Mr. Rosenberg was at City Hall on November 5th, allowed to leave, and was arrested yesterday, December 8th.

Mr. Rosenberg posted an open letter regarding the incident which the WCCO mentioned. Personally I find the wording in that letter inflammatory and rather poorly done. Multiple lines can be pulled out of context and perceived as threats. Let this be a note to everybody, be careful of the wording you use when conversing about firearms and self-defense topics. If you ever get involved in a situation you can guarantee some lawyer and the media will dig through your post history and try to use anything you’ve stated against you.

Either way this is going to be an interesting case to say the least.

EDIT 2010-12-09 10:30: Can and can’t are quite different and apparently I don’t know this. I changed “Minneapolis City Hall can arbitrarily” to “Minneapolis City Hall can’t arbitrarily.”

Voluntary Botnet

This is kind of an interesting premise that’s not at all new but being report as such by several source. MasterCard has been under a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. The attack was set off after MasterCard refused to allow customers to user their card to make donations to Wikileaks. This story is so multifaceted that I don’t know where to begin.

First this shows what kind of power companies like MasterCard and Visa can wield when they decide to no longer be a common carrier (allow customers holding their card to make payments to whoever they chose). It’s even more interesting since Wikileaks hasn’t actually done anything illegal meaning these moves are purely business.

Needless to say if you piss off the Internet is pissed on you back. MasterCard is currently under a DDoS attack but not by the usual malware created botnet. News sources are saying it’s by a voluntary botnet. Basically people are downloading an application called Low Orbit Ion Cannon (not to mistaken with GDI’s weapon of mass destruction that really does a good job of shoving it up Kane’s ass). Low Orbit Ion Cannon apparently connects to an invite-only IRC server and allows your system to become part of a botnet. Once the connection is established you system sends out constant traffic to a targeted node on the Internet.

Even more interesting is the fact that performing DDoS attacks is generally illegal. Most of the times the owners of the systems that are in a botnet aren’t held accountable because they did not knowingly allow control of their system to be taken. This case is different since each participant is voluntarily becoming part of the attacking botnet. This shows once again though that simply making something illegal is not a deterrent.

Julian Assange Arrested

I’ve haven’t covered a whole lot of the recent Wikileaks fiasco because everybody else on the planet and their grandmother already is doing it. Either way I will mention Julian Assange was arrested in Britian and is facing extradition to Sweden. Wikileaks says they’ll continue operations as normal which should be expected as Mr. Assange is mostly a founder and figurehead.

I Like This Judge

Some poor schmuck is being sent through the legal wringer because it made a side business of modifying Xbox 360 systems. Well the judge in the case isn’t too happy with the government agents who are bring the case out and went on a 30 minute rant against the actions of the government in this case. Here’s my favorite part:

Among the judge’s host of complaints against the government was his alarm that prosecutors would put on two witnesses who may have broken the law.

One is Entertainment Software Association investigator Tony Rosario, who secretly video-recorded defendant Matthew Crippen allegedly performing the Xbox mod in Crippen’s Los Angeles suburban house. The defense argues that making the recording violates California privacy law. The other witness is Microsoft security employee Ken McGrail, who analyzed the two consoles Crippen allegedly altered. McGrail admitted that he himself had modded Xboxes in college.

“Maybe two of the four government witnesses committed crimes,” the judge said from the bench. “I think it is relevant and the jury is going to hear about it –- both crimes.”

The government had fought to keep the witness conduct a secret from the jury.

So the actions of two witnesses may have been criminal and the government wanted to conceal that from the jury. Are they any people remaining who question my distaste of the government?

What I find most interesting is the fact this case exists at all. I understand the actions of the man being prosecuted were in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act but frankly that piece of legislation itself is unlawful. If I purchase a piece of hardware and want to pay somebody to modify it that’s my business, not the governments. My Xbox 360 is mine, I own it. Microsoft succeeded all rights to it upon my legal purchase of the device.

This is where many people will point out the license agreement that appears on the screen when you first power on the Xbox. Guess what? I never agreed to that before purchase and have no recourse should I disagree with the license. Would it be OK if I tossed in a license agreement to a car I sold that only became visible after somebody had purchased the car? “Oh hey I see you’re starting this car for the first time, just an FYI but doing so you agree to give me all the money in your bank account. K THANX BAI!”

Wikileaks

I haven’t spoke up about my opinion on the recent Wikileaks fiasco. Frankly I don’t know what to think here. I’m all for the information being released because a government that keeps secrets from it’s citizens is a government that is up to something bad.

What I find most interesting is the recent movements against Wikileaks. Some people are calling for Assange to be charged with treason which is moronic because he’s not an American citizen (so note to Sarah Palin, Wikileaks itself committed no treasonous act). Others are clamoring for him to be charged with Espionage under the Espionage Act of 1917. I find this rather interesting for the following reason:

(a) of this section in time of war shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years; and

(b) whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, shall collect, record, publish or communicate, or attempt to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the armed forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval of military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification of any place, or any other information relating to the public defence, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for not more than thirty years.

Emphasis mine. Under our Constitution the only way the United States can be at war is if Congress declares it. Congress has declared no war since World War II so can Assange really be lawfully charged under the Espionage Act? I’m not stating either way but I find it a most interesting observation.

Strangely enough you’ll notice many stories about people calling for the head of Assange. Do you want to know a little secret? Assange isn’t Wikileaks, he’s just their figurehead. Nabbing Assange will not shut down Wikileaks as there are far more people behind the scenes doing the real work of keeping the site up.

I’d also point out the fact that any potential damage has already been done. You can’t erase information from the Internet, especially a heavily mirrored site such as Wikileaks. Shutting down the main Wikileaks servers, high jacking the domain name, or any other such nonsense will accomplish absolutely nothing. The base technologies of the Internet were designed as a decentralized method of communication that would be difficult to take down should the Russian decide to let nukes fly. It’s incredibly resilient and does not lend itself well to censorship.

The United States government should realized the damage is done and there is nothing they can do to take the information back. They need to realize the only method of correcting this problem is to stop conducting backroom deals that would be embarrassing if they should ever come to light.

Private Messages on the Internet Don’t Exist

I thought I’d bring this up because the subject cropped up on a forum I frequent. If you’re planning an illegal activity involving illicit substances do not do it on a public forum or through e-mail (seriously it makes the rest of us on that forum look bad). Private messages don’t exist online (in 99.99% of cases). The messages you send and receive are almost always in plain text format that can be read by anybody with the correct credentials. This means a system administrator can see any private messages sent by any user on the system they administer.

This in of itself may not be a huge deal but if that administrator is served a subpoena for those messages they must legally provide them to the authorities. The same goes with e-mail. E-mail may be encrypted from your system to the e-mail server but it’s most likely not encrypted on the e-mail server after arrival. This means any authority figured with a subpoena can obtain those messages and according to an EFF summit I attended at Defcon any e-mails older than six months don’t even require a subpoena to obtain.

Basically if you’re going to do something illegal, embarrassing, politically unacceptable, etc. don’t do it online. Even if you control your e-mail server you don’t control others’. When somebody on GMail sends an e-mail a copy is stored in their sent folder which includes information on whom it was sent to.

I’ll close in saying the best way to avoid getting in trouble with the police is to avoid doing illegal activities. With that said this advice also applies to things outside of criminal activities such as politic dissidence. Basically anything you want to keep private should be encrypted end to end and stored in an encrypted format that can only be unencrypted by the sender and receiver of the message.